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From: Waldemar Rachwal <waldemar DOT rachwal AT gmail DOT com>
Subject:  Howto get Cygwin<->Linux interoperability on NTFS filesystems (symbolic links issue)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:17:26 +0000 (UTC)
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Cygwin 1.7 has *read* support of symlinks created by Vista+, but *no write* for
reasonable reasons (http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2007-01/msg00936.html).

That's not bad, as working in dual-boot system, when it comes to switch to
Linux, I would convert all cygwin-like symlinks to NTFS's native symlinks that
appeared along with Vista.

I was so naive that NTFS drivers under Linux will write Windows-like symlinks,
but simply they don't (Linux should have no problems that Cygwin faces with
elevating admin priviledges running under Vista). What mentioned drivers (ntfs,
ntfs-3g) create, look very similar to Cygwin - plain files with system attribute
set and contents with a target path the symlink points to (as unicode string).
But the formats differ slightly. While Cygwin's symlinks starts with !<symlink>,
those from linux drivers start with IntxLNK - so called Interix links, plus
other minor differencies.

My question is: why Cygwin invented its own format (if not, sorry ;)? Or should
rather Linux take Cygwin's format? Even Linux did later, isn't Interix some "old
standard"?

It's not my intent to start any war, but to find an answer and finally have a
solution (could be another option to CYGWIN envar or sth else). Or did I miss
something?

Thanks,
Waldemar.


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